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Since we're discussing the moral authority of God, I think it's only fair we do the same for the humanist viewpoint. Can any moral law derived from subjective and empirical notions of pleasure and pain be universalized to all rational men? Any moral law that you can think of based on the pleasure or pain it would cause to persons other than you is purely speculative. You are assuming your subjective bias of what causes you pain and pleasure can be universalized to everyone, which clearly is not the case. You may find life to be a great pleasure and dying to be a great pain, whereas someone else can plausibly find life to be a great pain and death to be a release from such pain. This has often been the case for psychopathic murders who are otherwise completely rational. Going by such a person's subjective experience of pleasure and pain, he has committed no immoral acts.

My point here is not advocate the discarding of secular humanist morality. There has been no major breakthrough in moral and ethical philosophy precisely because no moral system can be universalized in practice for every situation(divine command theory included). As such, shouldn't we advocate for a balance of different theories that combines to produce the best set of basic moral principles? If so, then the push to abolish religion seems counterproductive to that goal.

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It is interesting that those areas of the earth where they "Abolished Religion" - a workers' Utopia- are in fact no better than the medieval dark ages, where a privileged few lorded it over their slave laborers.

These nonreligious nations actually do have a form of religion-it is called nationalism, my nation, right or wrong! A clergy class - moral or secret police, political/party ( propaganda ) officers, etc.

You did not learn the Christ to be so. Those who lord it over others in a cruel fashion are not following the way of Christ. Originally there was no clergy class but the Catholic Douay-Rimes Bible of 1609 tell those in position of authority to "not be lording it over the clergy" or congregation.

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“Now, in a way doesn't it all, including the "right to protect," go back to survival as I posited above in my post to Everett? And the key question then is whether we discovered ourselves as man alone that it wasn't necessary to randomly and arbitrarily kill for survival beyond our loved ones, or whether we actually needed God (or Zach, or Krugman, or Stiglitz, or Obama) to tell us.”

I believe we can and have discovered moral principles on the basis of practicality and reason apart from organized religion, yes. The question is not whether we need God to tell us what is right and wrong, but whether we are more likely to stray from the moral path if we do not get confirmation of our morality from some objective source.

“In the case of the Maori, God hadn't told them and/or they just hadn't figured out the benefits of not "murdering." They hadn't stumbled on the likelihood that diversity beyond their tribe could actually help improve the species and even extend their survival time and in numbers, so they had reached a different evolutionary equilibrium than ours? Note that for the Maori to develop a new equilibrium could take time, including getting to know and learning to trust other tribes.”

Okay, I understand what you’re saying and such an ignorance of moral principles is an explanation of why it occurred, but does not excuse them. Just as a person who breaks a law unwittingly is still deserving of justice, although we would sympathized with him or her. However, as I said before, one has to wonder why the Maori practiced self-love only, instead of extending the sentiment to others. They clearly understood the benefits of cooperation within their tribe, so is it a matter of greed and selfishness that they did not consider cooperation with the Moriori? Even if they had developed some preconceived notion that the Moriori were a threat, was that not proved false upon invasion and why did they show no hint of mercy?

“As to whether social responsibility exists at the individual level or not, I believe it does but I don't believe that even if God does exist He reveals Himself to everybody equally, so whether we like it or not we have to rely on others to pass on the word, including writing the Bible, and we all know that what it says is subject to interpretation, again like it or not.”

Yes, exactly. Different interpretations of the text have led to different ritualistic practices and beliefs, but the core principles are very similar. The core principles that the Christian and secularist actually put into practice in their daily lives, simply the golden rule, are also not that different but the validation system is radically different. So why do some of us tear into each other with such vitriol?

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Tao, re your telling me "Okay, I understand what you’re saying and such an ignorance of moral principles is an explanation of why it occurred, but does not excuse them [the Maori]," is it not the case that it also doesn't excuse our constant and continuing sins? Don't we all live in constant sin even if we adhere zealously to the rules of our religion?

Yesterday I wrote another post where, among others, I said that we all are always making "one big assumption that I don't like, namely that we know all there is to know that is important about God or science, today, at this moment and no other, past or future, when in fact we know incredibly little about everything."

Afterwards I watched on C-Span a panel of historians. They were asked how historians place themselves in different historical periods without projecting and being influenced by their current world views. One gave an interesting example that he said he gives his students. He asks them what thing they find conditionally okay today that may seem one hundred years from now as being completely unacceptable under any circumstances. Then he gave them a parallel between slavery and war.

He pointed out how at the time of the compromise on slavery that made possible the Constitution and the United States, many of the Founders believed slavery was wrong but considered it a necessary evil. He then asked his rather large audience how many thought war was good and not a single hand went up. Then how many believed war was never justified (I forget how he phrased it) and only one or two hands went up.

Times change and we learn Tao. What of the sins we commit out of ignorance about how to avoid war today? Yet I've heard it said in this forum many times that God sanctions certain killings, that what he prohibits is murder. So where do we, or does He, draw the line? Yesterday, today or tomorrow? Isn't thou shall not kill, or murder, a core principle?

Shifting the subject only slightly, after I wrote the bit about how I feel uncomfortable with the assumption that we already know today all that is important, yet there is much that we don't know that we will only learn in the future, it occurred to me that for each of us as individuals there is really no future on earth, or even today there is no world beyond that which we know. To guide our actions today as individuals, we do have to make, or are justified in making, that assumption. But then should it not command respect, including by those who may know more or different things than we? If so, that raises the question with which you closed your post: "why do some of us tear into each other with such vitriol?"

As I write all of this I have the uncomfortable feeling that I am just going around in circles, or moving within a closed sphere, and that all I am doing is hopefully understand a bit better what I am doing so that maybe, just maybe, that new understanding let's me push the circle or sphere a bit out.

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Once morality becomes widely accepted, the temptation is to codify it into law. The problem with that, of course, is that morality exists on a continuum but the law, however, attempts to be binary, legal or illegal. The law incorporates the moral continuum by implementing its most important decisions through panels rather than individuals: juries and appelate courts.

Unfortunately, the activist extremists at both ends of any particular moral continuum do their best to use the law to force their behavioral choices on everyone through the legal system.

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After this article, you'd be hard pressed to claim that outlets like DC don't call them as they really are...even when they are promoting a man who has done more to diminish conservatives than nearly anyone else one could think of.

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Bill Maher told CSU-San Bernardino professor Brian Levin that he is "not an Islamophobe," but rather "a truth lover" when he rightly--and to the chagrin of the Left--asserted that "All religions are not alike." Maher pointed out that "there is only one religion that threatens violence and carries it out..." against anyone anywhere who tells a joke about or otherwise suggests anything that Muslims perceive to insult "the prophet."

Maher asked Levin, "Could anyone do a Broadway show about "The Book of Islam, like "The Book of Mormon?" When Levin replied, "possibly so," Maher snapped. "You're wrong about that and you are wrong about your facts. Now, obviously, most Muslims are not terrorists. But ask most Muslims in the world, if you insult the prophet, do you have what's coming to you? It's more than a fringe element." Spot on! Thanks, Keith. BTW, atheist guru Sam Harris obdurately subscribes to Maher's view, and is savagely bashed by the Greg-type radical leftists for his reasoned position on Islam v. Other religions.

As regards, Zach v. James on Boston, James read my posts and followed the facts I alleged and the logic I used to explain my belief on what the evidence would ultimately yield. I always maintained that Monday's grim spectacle required authorities to investigate everything with precision and without tunnel vision. I never disqualified in toto any class of suspects--but I did point out that the modus operandi, the bomb used, and recent terrorist history in the context of what we initially learned about the attacks bore the scent and DNA of radical Islamist terrorists.

Police departments all over the country have had for years "career criminal surveillance units." These are highly trained cops who develop intelligence about really bad guys who are released from prison from their intelligence network. When a crime is committed in their jurisdiction, investigators prioritize their focus and resources to this group first--without abandoning other leads or possibilities. This is effective law enforcement, aimed first at preventing crime, but laser focused on the most likely perpetrators as a matter of professional expediency to restore normalcy to communities asap after a crime is committed. This is the model I applied to Boston.

James called out Zach for flirting with minutiae and quibbling about irrelevancies--trolling for and decrying the mote in my eye, and failing to notice the huge splintered beam obstructing his own. But this is the MO of most uppity pseudo-intellectual pseudo moralists of Zach's atheistic persuasion. Kudos to him for getting it half right: the Tsarnev brothers were both Caucasian, and radicalized Muslims. Greg is probably crying over the fact that the Tea Party wasn't responsible for the explosions. Kudos to you, James, and Kleenex tissues to Greg...

While it's certainly possible for non-Muslims to commit terrorism, we do ourselves a disservice by being afraid to cause offense and refuse to consider in this day and age that Muslims are at the top of law enforcement lists as the most likely perpetrators of these acts of evil. And whether these Chechen brothers are part of a terrorist cell or inspired by the teachings of jihadist clerics, the Boston scene is one that has come to pass in NYC, DC., Bali, Madrid, London, Jerusalem, and Fort Hood. A critical mass of the Muslim world ( regardless of race and national origin) is at war with the U.S. and Western Civilization. To pretend otherwise would be foolish.

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Actually i take no comfort in who committed these atrocious acts. My point was not to jump the conclusions. And that is still my advice. if the other brother survives , then we may learn what truly motivated these people. The picture that is emerging is that the older brother felt disaffected to American society. He had hoped to represent the U.S. in the Olympics but could not because of citizenship or not making the team. if this was a motivator, then it is neither ideological or religious.

Disappointment can morph into lots of things. The older brother reportedly became more religious. However, claiming not to have a "single American friend" appears not to be a religious observation but a societal one. The idea that this guy felt completely isolated in the U.S. is perhaps the central theme that will examined. And it is markedly different from Jihadist propaganda or even the vengeance ridden mantra of McVeigh or the paranoid delusions of a predatory government that Militia harbor.

But it is not different than the "lone wolf" perpetrators that either suffer from some clinical mental disorder or develop their own brand of paranoid delusion. In a word this may be closer to the Adam Lanza massacre of innocents than it is to some sort religious motivated event.

As to Bill Maher, it is amazing how you guys pounce on well known positions of 'progressive pundits". Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris have all voiced the same concern about Islamic militancy. Levin's point was not to place the overwhelming majority of Muslims who are peaceable people into the camp of the extreme minority who are not. he also made the point that Christians had done some pretty bad things in the name of their religion also. Maher accepted that but stated that this was generally not a modern time occurrence. What you failed to note is that Maher is a strident opponent of ALL religion (with a special axe to grind with Christianity) and proceeded to make fun of them later in the show.

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Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens are two original members of "The Four Horsemen of Neo-Atheism," together with Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. Maher is a renowned Christian basher. So what? Why do I need to mention irrelevant well known facts about these characters when I am narrowly focusing on radical Islamist terrorism in my post? Cui bono? Yours? Pleease!

Your capacity for specious rationalizations of untenable positions in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary never ceases to amaze and entertain me. It is very nice for leftists to play the "Oprah" card when trying to mitigate culpability for bombing and killing a child and other innocents, and dismembering limbs of survivors, after it is known that the Tsarnaev brothers were Muslims who posted on Facebook "disturbing" violent Islamic videos together with religious speech favorable to global jihad.

These terrorists were not mentally ill, like Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner(Tucson shooter)and James Holmes(Aurora), who shot their targets. A bombing requires much more planning and coordination than a shooting spree. Even the "workplace violence(what a joke!)" jihadist terror attack in Fort Hood, where Major Nidal Malik Hassan cried out "allahu akbar" as he fired at his fellow soldiers, necessitated far less planning and coordination than the Boston event.

True, Tamerlan groused about not having "a single American friend." But it is just as likely for you to cite that "his undergarments were too tight," or that he had severe hemorrhoids on April 15, and that caused him to kill. Come on Greg!

As far as McVeigh is concerned, with his record of military service, his crew cut, his all American background--he actually is more like Zach than any terrorist in history--he was an oddity, a man with drastically different, sui generis pathologies than any other terror killer before or after him. Why not round up everyone that looks like McVeigh and Zach and send them to Gitmo? Zach could post away a tsunami of nonsense from that resort in this discussion, and even write a book...of fiction, of course.

You are fond of pinning on Nancy in particular, but also on others who defend Christianity and separate it from the past bad act of Christians in this discussion, the NTS fallacy--yet you and your ilk have coined a new one to exculpate Islam: the NTM -- No True Muslim -- fallacy!

No True Muslim could do these horrible things. It can't be that religion of peace -- where homosexuals are not a known subset of society, and women are afforded as much respect and honor as indentured servants of men, only good for forced sex-on-demand and beatings or worse if they open their mouths...except, of course, for fellatio...

But what could be expected from a superior intellectual class like yours, where only facts, logic and reason rule. Nowhere else but in such brilliant minds could pornography in college classrooms is good, but calling a woman "honey" is bad; smoking marijuana -- good, smoking cigarettes--bad; morning-after pill on-demand for girls under 16 --good, sex with girls under 16--bad, illegal bad; naked women gyrating on stage--good, calling them "hussies"--offensive; Elliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal--a career-changer, Carrie Prejean's "I'm for traditional marriage" scandal, a career-ender;Michel Vick's dog-killing--big news, Kermit Gosnell's baby-killing, not news...

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WowCan Zach be right?"Muslim teenage boys are still teenage boys, just like Christian teenage boys."Are Christian teenage boys being radicalized? Are they flocking to the call for jihad? Do they beat their women? Stone them for the temerity of having been raped? Murder their sisters for the sake of family honor? Slaughter innocent people as they look forward to their 22 virgins?

No, Christian teenage boys are not like Muslim teenage boys, they are sane because they are not taught to be otherwise.

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Jim, the “minutae” is important because it calls into question the history of domestic terrorism that you paint. Muslim extremists executed two successful bombings on American soil (three, if you count the U.S.S. Cole, but that wasn’t on American soil) in the past twenty-three years. Other, non-Muslim, extremists also executed two successful bombings on American soil in the past twenty-three years, with MOs much more similar to Boston than the 9/11 attacks. When you said that Muslims were responsible for all domestic bombings in the last twenty years, you were forgetting about two bombings, both of which were not committed by Muslims. Based on the case you present, that overlooked detail is very important.

Additionally, pressure cooker bombs are not exclusive to Muslim extremists. As I noted, they’ve been used in northern Ireland, Colombia, and Sri Lanka, just to name a few locales. The U.S. military teaches the technique to service-members in qualified units (disclaimer: unclassified). The type of bomb tells us very little of a concrete nature, and certainly nothing conclusive. For example, if the bomb had been based around a Russian artillery shell, THAT would have been a big hint.

“While it's certainly possible for non-Muslims to commit terrorism,” whew, at least we got that out of you ;), “ we do ourselves a disservice by being afraid to cause offense and refuse to consider in this day and age…” Jim, I don’t give a cup of spit as to whether I offend anyone or not. I just don’t like to jump to conclusions with incomplete information, especially when those conclusions might help turn the mountain-out-of-a-molehill that the media often makes of Islamophobia into an actual mountain.

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Out of curiosity, and I don't know the answer myself, do you think that when the FBI had the pictures of the two suspects they went for facial comparisons first to their worldwide files, or first to their potential Islamist threats file?

As to Jim saying “While it's certainly possible for non-Muslims to commit terrorism,” and your responding "whew, at least we got that out of you ;)," how come I have been hearing Jim say that repeatedly since his first post on the subject but you haven't?

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The career criminal surveillance teams that law enforcement uses to keep tabs on habitual jewel thieves, home invasion specialists, armed robbers, purse snatchers, etc., operate on the esoteric (to you) principle that when a particular crime is committed in one of the aforementioned criminal categories--as well as many others--the idea is to focus on career burglars after a burglary, not on career shoplifters.

To qualify for membership in the infamous fraternity of career criminals, you've got to be experienced and proficient in your specialty. You talk about a couple of exceptions to the bombing-specialty rule--McVeigh and Rudolph, and endeavor to assign to them equal status as an investigative priority in the Boston bombing with radical jihadists--whose scent, prints and DNA were in prominent evidence from the get go.

This is not about excluding anyone. It is about prioritizing investigative resources to a) identify and apprehend the culprits swiftly, and b) restore a sense of order to the affected community. As it is your wont, you continue to try to make this matter, through linguistic legerdemain and distortions of logic, about "rushing to judgment" and"jumping to conclusions" before sifting through the evidence. This was never my position. James understood this fact and brought it to your attention--in good faith. Yet you go on equivocating and shadow-boxing, the findings thus far notwithstanding.

Feel free to go on. This isn't about parsing bomb design and construction. This isn't about "forgetting about two bombings" in the past twenty years that were not committed by Muslims. This is about sifting through the evidence and cataloging it in context--to solve the crime quickly and let life get back to normal asap. This isn't about the media hyping up their story lines. It is about what law enforcement does and must do to separate the wheat from the chaff and catch the real perpetrators. You like chaff. I prefer wheat. Try it! You may like it.

The successful and aborted jihadist bombings the world over in the past two decades are myriad, well-documented, and provide a solid body of credible evidence of immense probative force to support the theory that it most likely was the work of this genus of terrorists rather than the two others you mention that bore responsibility for the heinous act. I started from this premise, and I end with the same logical and well-reasoned conclusion. QED. Quod Erat Demonstrandum. It has been proved. Any doubts still?

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"2nd there was no Pauline sect nor a sect of James nor sect of Peter, Even Peter called Paul the former Pharisee ( religious lawyer ) Saul of Tarsus - "our brother Paul" They all believed in ( James was half brother of Jesus ) Jesus as a real person -the same person."

Peter,

As you have presented a veritable mine field of Evangelical propaganda, I will focus one interesting point. The idea that Paul was a Pharisee. What is interesting is that Pharisee is word derived from parushi. Robert Price traces this group back to the Captivity and states that among other things they were followers of Zoroastrianism. Within this Persian religion was a godlike figure with you guessed it 12 disciples. The term pharisee was originally derisive , according to Price, but at some point its adherents proudly took up the label. They became one of three or four schools of Jewish religious thought existing in the first century CE along with the Sadducees and Essenes. Pharisees were more accepted by the common folks and were less Torah reliant. This pretty much dovetails into Paul's "Christian" philosophy which did away with virtually all of the Judaism's over 600 rules and readily accepted Gentiles.

And if you don't think that the Gospels were written by highly trained writers, consider this. Both Matthew and Luke closely follow the "Hero Archetype" that was present in much of Greek storytelling. Here the hero is born of virgin evidencing that his dad is a god. Think Perseus, Hercules, Dionysus, etc. Here's a. list. See how many fit the Jesus story

Unusual circumstances of birthLeaves FamilyEvent leads to adventure or questSpecial weaponSupernatural helpProves himself many timesJourney and unhealable woundAtonement with fatherSpiritual reward

And as to going back and reinterpreting stories written centuries before and then calling it prophecy, I think that you can see the obvious problems with that. Followers of Nostradamus have done the same thing producing shadowy forecasts of Hitler and JFK. Jews have generally decried Christian attempts to take their sacred texts and redefine them in a Christian context. And Erhman covers the whole area of who wrote the New Testament in his book "Forged" From who wrote the Pauline epistles to the authorship of the Gospels, Erhman takes a historical perspective to what we can know and can't know. I highly recommend it

I closed with a comment and clarification that I kind of like, so here it is again unencumbered by any other baggage.

These of course are very complex issues and it is very easy to start going down any number of slippery slopes when you start tinkering with the more basic values, which I suppose is why I tend to be conservative. It's not that I don't see the need for change, but rather that I am afraid of the unknown negative consequences of what are, again, very complex issues [and I therefore tread carefully and lightly]. Of course for the young who are still oblivious to the complexities of life, or for those willing to default to some other secular authority to fix the problems, these complexities and unintended consequences are not an issue.

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“You haven't posted ‘dozens of studies’, you posted one and Planned Parenthood was a principal participant, therefore it is unreliable….Notice that far from the dozens you claim, they are not even peer reviewed studies.They are abstracts, the authors summery of his own article.”

You originally thought than an abstract was a “description of what a study may possibly contain.” Then, after I told you that an abstract was actually written by the author of the study, you’ve decided that this means the study isn’t peer-reviewed. Time for another lesson: Every study I cited was published in a journal that requires every study published within its pages go through a peer review process. That’s how scientific journals establish and maintain credibility in the community.

“As to the importance of peer review, consider this criticism of peer review…”

Ah, yes; you figured I would call your B.S. in your first paragraph, so you hedged your bets and shifted the target to the peer review process in general. Peer review is a great process, but yes, like any process it does have flaws. Have you forgotten, James, how this whole exchange of studies started? You provided me with a study and spent several posts extoling its validity and immutability based on the fact that it had been…you guessed it…peer reviewed.

Come on, now. It’s time to put on the man pants and admit that you were wrong. I’ve done it before; trust me, it’s really not that hard. It does take some cojones, but you’ve assured me you have plenty of those.

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ZachAs I said, you lied when you claimed you posted dozens, you posted one and its bias rendered it useless.

Then you say,"You originally thought than an abstract was a “description of what a study may possibly contain.” Then, after I told you that an abstract was actually written by the author of the study, you’ve decided that this means the study isn’t peer-reviewed."

My original thought is valid, and if you ever told me what an abstract was, and I can't find where you did, it was not needed, I knew what it was long before I ever heard of you.

But as to this,I decided that this means the study isn't peer-reviewed?

Now Zach, you are going to have to prove this one, feel free to go through my activity on my profile page, unlike you I don't block it, or you can go through your own, I can't cause it's blocked, but you can.

Now unless you can provide a quote where I say the articles you reference are not peer-reviewed, you are a blatant, bold faced liar.

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“The Bible is not God. It is when you go confusing the two the way you did here that I believe you are playing games and, frankly, I lose respect for you. You've ignored totally what I've been saying for more than two years about separating God from the religion, God from man and his product, and that to the extent that God is twisted it is done by man for his selfish purposes.”

Your response is very interesting for a number of reasons, particularly in light of how you brushed off Everett’s comment (“I didn't know you knew God so well.”) with a quip and a smile. Go back and think about what Everett said; he made the same point I did (whether he meant to or not, though I suspect the former), but more effectively and concisely. How do you know God so well? You’re talking about your own special conception of God that fits neatly into your social theory, which is what you’ve been talking about for two years. But you think we can safely separate discussions about the nature of the Christian God from the words of the Bible, the foundation of the Christian religion, and call it a day? Don’t you think that might be presumptuous, at the very least? I’ll hold off now until you reply.

“Of course for the young who are still oblivious to the complexities of life, or for those willing to default to some other secular authority to fix the problems, these complexities and unintended consequences are not an issue.”

What happened to not painting with a broad brush, assigning attributes to whole groups of people you’ve never met? Does that only apply selectively?

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Great conversation so far. Tao, I think the problem with your assessment is that it necessarily implies that God has moral limitations; in other words, if God is the ultimate moral authority, than he can indeed be a square peg that fits in a round hole. If his edicts are constrained by some external force—the objective quality of being “all-loving”—God therefore isn’t the ultimate moral authority. That external force is. Again, farther down the page, you present the idea that God would never command rape as moral because it would be against his nature. Yet, doesn’t that mean that some external force has power over God, limiting him to the confines of his own nature, which he himself is powerless to control?

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No Zach, I posited the only thing that keeps God from doing evil is God's character. You're confusing wouldn't with can't. A moral man will, at moments of weakness, give in to temptation and do things against his better judgement and character, but God has no such weakness.

"if God is the ultimate moral authority, than he can indeed be a square peg that fits in a round hole"

God would have to be irrational to be able to commit logical fallacy, at which point any attempt to understand anything regarding Him would be pointless.

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I believe the problem still exists. If God is his own self-contained logical system, he can modify the rules of logic as he chooses and thus HE defines what is rational and irrational in the same way he defines what is moral and immoral. A self-imposed constraint implies there is something to be constrained against, which in turn implies the existence of an external code, does it not?

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Tao said.............................No Zach, I posited the only thing that keeps God from doing evil is God's character------------------------So Tao, you define God's character such that God can't do anything you think wrong?

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"A self-imposed constraint implies there is something to be constrained against, which in turn implies the existence of an external code, does it not?"

No... If one's actions are constrained by one's own values and volition to act upon them, how are they anything other than internal?

"If God is his own self-contained logical system, he can modify the rules of logic as he chooses and thus HE defines what is rational and irrational in the same way he defines what is moral and immoral."

Like I said, if you believe that then there is no point in speculating anything about God because you have just negated the validity of rationale and reasoning.

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Because they aren’t really constrained, then, in the sense that we can be sure whatever God does is all-loving. God can change the definition of what is constrained and what isn’t at any time without notice, and only IF “all-loving” is defined by God’s constraint standards would his edicts remain “all-loving”.

I know that this brings the validity of reasoning regarding God into question, and that’s part of the point I’m trying to make. If some external standard applies to God, we can be certain that God is constrained by constant boundaries. If, however, no external standard exists, God has no true boundaries of which we can be certain.

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To simplify the question, if God defines right then who are we to quarrel with Him? I don't like the way God treated Job, Job didn't like the way God treated him, but Job wound up the one grovelling in the dirt because he was so impertinent as to ask God what he had done to deserve all the misfortune that fell upon him.

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tao siad.......................All my arguments are conditional on assumed premises; for this conversation Everett stipulated IF God is the supreme moral authority, thus we are asked to assume the just nature of God.----------------------------------Well, we can clear that up. Is God's authority supreme, or not?

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If God chooses to do something against His all-loving nature, then is He really all-loving? No, that's a fallacy. He either chooses to be all-loving, in which case EVERYTHING He does is all-loving, or He is not all-loving.

"If, however, no external standard exists, God has no true boundaries of which we can be certain."

Never said that we could be certain. All my arguments are conditional on assumed premises; for this conversation Everett stipulated IF God is the supreme moral authority, thus we are asked to assume the just nature of God.

That being said, is there any reason to put faith in an unjust or whimsical god? No. An unjust god will not reward moral actions and a whimsical one will do what he will do regardless of what you do.

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Maybe you do not know. St.Augustine, Avicenna, Boethius, St.Thomas Aquinas,Majmonides,...-Christins, Muslims, Jews already answers these ...questions.The war starts again and again like in 14th century Duns Scott, a Franciscan (?) contra St.Thomas Aquinas (Dominicans). Mr.Zach is ..fooling like D.Scott.Do we, humans do not have the same rational faculty to follow the same abslute principles of logic?

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I think the problem still exists, Tao. Let's try a different angle. You use the word "unjust"; however, if God defines what is just and unjust simply by his existence, isn't the concept of justice meaningless since justice and God are one and the same? In other words, when it comes to morality, doesn't that then mean that good as an independent concept is meaningless, since good is God and God is good?

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"An unjust god will not reward moral actions and a whimsical one will do what he will do regardless of what you do." --- Why does one need an external god's reward for moral actions? Shouldn't the moral action be it's own reward? It seems to me that only evil requires reward for doing good. Good never requires anything, reward or otherwise, for honoring it's own good virtue.

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I agree with Tao. God, through his being, defines what is good and just. When we, his creation, choose to act contrary to God, we become unrighteous and unjust.

The question is: Does God have an obligation to continue the life of anyone who chooses to act in rebellion towards Him and his justice?

I think some people have a hard time accepting the concept of a Being who has no constraints or higher authority over him. Oddly enough, they think somehow they can fill that role--the creation can judge the Creator. I believe that's the definition of pride.

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How so EverettI'd like to understand your thinking, but I don't.How does Tao's view of God place restraints on God?I, and I speak only for myself, place no restraints on God. If you are sure I do you should have no problem telling me how.So I ask, how?

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EverettTao said nothing about Tao defining the character of God, he said God would have to be irrational to commit logical fallacy.Where in that do you find Tao defining God's character and proclaiming it is limited to what Tao thinks is right?

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Everett said it perfectly: “Yes. Why the rush to judgment b4 all the dust settles. It makes me think of lynch mobs.”

In the interest of diplomacy, I will not speculate as to why you feel the need to assign the motivation for this bombing to a different religion and culture than your own before you even know all the facts. Suffice it to say that the attitude you present is precisely why the word “Islamophobia” has been coined. If the younger brother tells us he did it in the name of Allah, and we don’t find out later that he’s lying to cover up the agenda of a group with separate interests, that would be sufficient evidence. Otherwise, aren’t you just speculating? Why not call it that, instead of jumping to conclusions so eagerly—are you really that much smarter than the rest of us, or do you have the power to see into the future? Perhaps you secretly work for the CIA and have access to classified information that we don’t? If not, I recommend sitting tight and waiting until all the facts come out before you share your “conclusions” with others.

“It's questionable in my mind that we should continue to allow Islamic fundamentalists to freely immigrate here…There is no human right violation to deny them entry into our country, especially if we have determined that they pose a significant risk to U.S. persons or property.”

If we could find an effective way of keeping hardline Islamic extremists outside our borders, I wouldn’t object (obviously). However, you’d first need to decide exactly what makes a Muslim an “extremist” or “fundamentalist”, and then devise an effective way of screening for them. I don’t think a multiple-choice test will do the trick. Imagine Question #12: “Would you consider detonating an explosive device in a public area in the name of your religion?”

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I know I am speculating. People speculate all the time. The courts will decide for their part, but there is no reason not to speculate. In fact, speculation serves a useful purpose, namely it gets people thinking about the issues, which is what this blog is all about, right?

But I do truly want to know when you make the decision. At some point, you will have to decide--Islamic Jihad, or Brain Tumor. Please let us know. I will keep asking periodically to see if you ever get there.

As for a screening procedure, I think you are overthinking this. I have confidence that our social scientists could put together a written exam, the results of which could be reviewed by a panel, that would determine if people wishing to enter our country harbored ideas and values that could be considered "extreme." I'm not suggesting that this be used for citizens...far from it.

Such a process would serve to protect the citizenry. Where is it written that we must allow entry to every person on an equal basis. We should make reasoned value judgements, and when a certain type of person is bombing our citizenry on a routine basis, then reasonable people have to act reasonably to protect themselves.

There is no rush to judgement. I have told you what I think based on what we know so far.

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If I asked you, “Any doubt yet that this was an act of Christian tea party extremists?” would you think that I was (a) engaging in speculation or (b) had come to the conclusion that this was an act of Christian tea party extremists? Language is important; words have meaning.

I'll be sure to let you know when I'm ready to say, "Any doubt yet that this was X?"

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Well I do see quite a bit of hypocrisy in Zach's position.I'm sure he will let me know where I am wrong, he's not a shy boy, he's a "man pants" sort of guy.So ZachWhere does this righteous indignation stem from? A desire to be fare? A desire for the facts before we opine?Very noble, but it tends to lean to only one group.When was the last time, or for that matter any time, you protested a crime committed being labeled, with all the additional penalties attributed, a "Hate Crime"?

Now I don't remember what your position was in regards to the shooting of Trayvon Martin, But I do recall that you never admonished your fellow Texan for his early on conclusions, and calls for justice against the shooter, George Zimmerman.

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“Now I don't remember what your position was in regards to the shooting of Trayvon Martin, But I do recall that you never admonished your fellow Texan for his early on conclusions, and calls for justice against the shooter, George Zimmerman.”

So that’s what it’s come to? I didn’t scold Greg on a particular issue to your liking? If you’d been paying close attention to these pages, you may have noticed that I often dispute Greg’s claims. I just called him out a few pages ago for entertaining premature media claims that Boston may have been the work of Tea Party extremists. You didn’t even notice, I bet, but such is the nature of selective reading.

By the way, it would only be hypocrisy if I actively adopted or defended a premature conclusion based on minimal evidence.

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Aye Zach, since you brought up the learning curve I thought you might find this of interest.After I finally got myself kicked out of Cardinal Hayes HS, and installed into Saunders Trade and Tech. I was confronted with the dilemma of grading on a curve, the problem was me.I got all the answers right therefore I set the standard for the curve, 100=100,That's not the goal, I was told that I was excluded from the curve and would be graded separately based on my raw data.Fine with me, to me it was easy, but the kids they are pushing ahead, I know and they know they don't know their -bleep- from their elbow.